How many words are
too many?

While attending a conference last week it struck me that many of the
presentations could effectively be summarised into a few words. Sheila Jasanoff’s
one hour talk, for instance, could simply have been ‘the history of words
matter’. Givanni Dosi’s presentation could have been, ‘I have nothing new to
add since the last time I talked to you’.

Many fundamental things require even fewer words, sometimes heading
towards zero. You can express disgust with ‘ugh’, frustration with ‘aargh’. You
can look some people in the eye, and they will know what you want to say.

Now although I claim to be a man of few words, I realise that this
is a personal myth. I wax lyrical and verbose when I start talking, although
there are days – for I live alone – where I say nothing. But when there is something or someone I feel
passionate about, my cup runneth over.

In my case, it is an outward expression of my inner voice. I have -
as you know - a mind that wanders through and away, tangentially, not always
usefully. Thus my need to write, to talk, to let the dialogue
of my inner demons loose, to wrestle them down into submission. Thus the
essays, the poems, even my academic papers, for putting them out in public allows
me to free myself of fallacious and ridiculous directions of thought, and the
satisfaction (occasionally) of finding a gem amongst the rubble in my head. But
this is a selfish exercise at worst, and of interest to one or a few people who
enjoy the dialogue, or read my academic work, at best. I admit it. Passion acts
on us differently. When I am in anguish, because (for instance) a thought does
not resolve itself, I cannot stop expressing myself. Others respond to this
pain by monk-like silence.

But it seems that the basic issue in everything, once you cut out
the bullshit, the explanations, the justifications, doesn’t require many words.
You can say ‘I love you’ or ‘I am hungry’ or ‘I have warts’ or ‘institutions
are important’ in three. All the rest of it, before and after, simply justifies
these words, situating them into context, so that their meaning does not get
misplaced. This may involve deciding where I’d like to eat, and where, or what
it is I love, and why, or which institutions are important.

If one uses too many words, people stop listening. Fidel Castro is
famous for 7 hour speeches which no one remembers.When my essays get too long, fewer people
read them, no matter how well I may have expressed myself. If one uses too few, the context will be lost,
and the meaning that you wish to convey is open to misinterpretation. I believe
this is a challenge faced not just in academia, but in advertising, propaganda,
and even interpersonal relations. How many misunderstandings exist out amongst
people, either because of the lack of communication, or the excess of it?

So the question that has been bothering me since that conference is
this: What is the optimal number of words required to
justify any basic message, so that the essential core does not drown in a sea
of excess words, nor marooned because of a shortage to support its essence?